Quilted Christmas cards

OK, I am just going to stop apologizing for making Christmas cards this early in the year. I can't help myself, its my favorite season and I love the papers, old and new.

These four Christmas cards were inspired by this pin on Pinterest, another Pinspiration that I saw and instantly had to try my hand at it. I love patterned paper and I love LOVE LOVE cards with lots of layers and patterns and textures. So this design was perfection to me.

There is a 4 1/8 x 5 5/8 inch CTMH Cranberry cardstock layer that all the patterned paper is attached to.  I then cut 4 pieces of coordinating CTMH Mistletoe patterned paper at 4 x 5.25 inches. I then cut all four pieces at 2.5 inches along the long edge, then cut that 2.5 x 5.25 piece in half again at the 1.75 inch mark. The other 1.5 x 5.25 inch piece I cut in half at 1.75 inches also. So now you have four patterns cut into four pieces each. Now lay them out to create the quilted design you see above. I distress inked all of the patterned paper edges and then glued the pattern pieces to the cardstock base. I like the glue sticks for this job, I feel like it gives a better finished embossed design than just taping around the edges of each piece. I am not sure how much detail you can see in the photo but I ran the entire card front through my Cuttlebug in an embossing folder.

All of the stamped shapes are cut on the Cricut from CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge.

The CTMH Cranberry cardstock layer is cut at 3.5 x 1.5 inches. The CTMH Colonial white layer is cut at 3.25 x 1.25 inches. Perfect for stamping the CTMH Holiday wishes sentiments on.

See how I distress inked inside, leaving a bit of a border?

And see how I pierced around the edges of each stamped label?

I cut the label shapes from a piece of recycled acetate, packaging from something, saved just for such a project. I cut each of the label shapes at 3.12 x 1.12 inches so that they will leave a slim outline on the smallest label shape cut from cardstock. I decided to try this inking and the piercing idea because of tutorial I have seen where people ink inside the Nestability shapes after they are cut out. And also how SU! is creating piercing templates for all of their new Framelits. So this is my FREE way of mimicking those abilities. Pretty cool, huh? I think it will be very handy.

As always, I have already created these .cut files, and I am happy to share them with you so you don't have to spend time recreating them. So if you like this idea and would like the Cricut Design studio .cut file please leave a comment below. Include your email address so I don't have to go searching to see if it is available on your Google profile. That's no fun for me. It cuts into my crafting or Pinterest time.  ;) Thanks.

Find inspiration everywhere! Go... Create something fun & fabulous. Enjoy!